"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Our God Is Marching On

Homer, Iliad 4.439-445 (tr. William Cowper):

These Mars to battle roused,Those Pallas azure-eyed; nor Terror thenceNor Flight was absent, nor insatiate Strife,Sister and mate of homicidal Mars,Who small at first, but swift to grow, from earthHer towering crest lifts gradual to the skies.She, foe alike to both, the brands dispersedOf burning hate between them, and the woesEnhanced of battle wheresoe'er she pass'd.

Each host now joins, and each a god inspires,These Mars incites, and those Minerva fires,Pale flight around, and dreadful terror reign;And discord raging bathes the purple plain;Discord! dire sister of the slaughtering power,Small at her birth, but rising every hour,While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound,She stalks on earth, and shakes the world around;The nations bleed, where'er her steps she turns,The groan still deepens, and the combat burns.

William Cullen Bryant's translation:

These Mars encouraged to the fight; but thoseThe blue-eyed Pallas. Terror too was there,And Fright, and Strife that rages unappeased, -Sister and comrade of man-slaying Mars, -Who rises small at first, but grows, and liftsHer head to heaven and walks upon the earth.She, striding through the crowd and heighteningThe mutual rancor, flung into the midstContention, source of bale to all alike.

Samuel Butler's translation:

These were inspired of Mars, but the others by Minerva - and with them came Panic, Rout, and Strife whose fury never tires, sister and friend of murderous Mars, who, from being at first but low in stature, grows till she uprears her head to heaven, though her feet are still on earth. She it was that went about among them and flung down discord to the waxing of sorrow with even hand between them.